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Meteorology --> Atmosphere/Temperature Pressure/Wind Moisture/storms
Climatology --> Climatology Climate Reconstruction
Change & Warming 		Applied Climatology
CLIMATOLOGY C Regional Climates Reconstruction Change Warming

Climate Change

I.   HISTORICAL CHANGES

A.   Historical Glacial Periods (Ice Ages) / millions of years?

B.   Most Recent Glacial Period ("Wisconsin Glaciation")

  1. peaked 22,000 yrs BP
  2. sea level change: global view / "Bering Land Bridge" / animation
  3. Younger-Dryas: 12,000 yrs BP
  4. interglacial period
C.   Little Ice Age (1550s to late-1800s)... plus a hockey stick
  1. Thames River frozen: 1670s / 1680s / 1814
  2. 1816 = "year with no summer" / theoretical jet stream map
    "Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death"
  3. current warming starts in late 1800s
    • What should one expect after the Little Ice Age?
    • Note the y-axis (vertical)

II.   MECHANISMS, PROCESSES, THEORIES

A.   Milankovic Theory

  1. eccentricity
    • orbital shape change
    • 100,000 yr cycle
  2. obliquity
  3. precession of the axis (animation)
    • wobble in Earth's rotation
      ** tilt to the "right" or "left"?
    • change in aphelion/perihelion
    • 23,000 yr cycle
  4. connection: ice sheets peaked every 100,000 yrs
    • smaller advances at 41,000 & 23,000 yrs
B.   Volcanic Eruptions
  1. Mount Tambora, Indonesia - 1815
  2. El Chichon, Mexico - 1982
  3. Pinatubo, Philippines - 1991
    • 20 million tons of SO2!!
  4. Yellowstone eruptions??
  5. U.S. Pacific Northwest volcanoes!
  6. Impact of volcanic eruptions on atmosphere?
  7. volcanic & natural dust effect ... graph
C.   Sunspots (close up)
  1. 11 yr cycle (max in spots)
  2. past 11,000 years
  3. past 1,100 years (Maunder Minimum & others)
    • 1645-1715 = coldest part of Little Ice Age
    • Dalton Minimum = last of LIA
  4. solar vs. temperature / U.S. only / Arctic temps? / vs. SST?
  5. solar vs. CO2? (more solar vs. temp)
  6. sunspots & cosmic rays (are cosmic rays driving our climate?)
  7. cosmic rays vs. cloud cover (research support)
  8. 21st Century Minimum? ... article
D.   Other Mechanisms of Climate Change
  1. thermohaline circulation
    • cold and salt add to density
    • affected by sea floor volcanics?
  2. plate tectonics: location of continents? animation ... map
  3. asteroid impact / small / world map
  4. human causes

CLIMATOLOGY CHAPTERS -----> Regional Climates Reconstruction Change Warming